Muffin Tin Monday!

That right folks! It's time for another edition of Muffin Tin Monday! You don't know about Muffin Tin Monday? Oh no! That means you haven't been reading my blog very long. To find out all about it go here to find out all about the Muffin Tin Craze.
This week we were only supposed to use muffin cups (not the actual tins). I found these great polk-a-dot cups at Target so I decided to go with the dots and used that theme through out the lunch.

Here are the boys plates full of muffin cups

See, aren't the muffin cups cute?

And finally, here's what we had to eat: Circle Crackers (Ritz) with Circle Cheese (I used a biscuit cutter to cut the cheese), Ranch (okay, not really a circle), Carrots sliced to be circles, M&M's (I just happen to see these on a shelf at our house and thought "Why Not? They're circles after all), Mini Circle Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches (I used the biscuit cutter on the bread as well).

Yummy Veggie Burgers

About once a week I make an effort to have a completely vegetarian meal for our family. Truth be told, I would be a vegetarian if my husband wasn't such a meat lover : )
Anyway, back on topic...
A couple of nights ago I made portobello mushroom burgers. My recipe is my own take from a Rachel Ray recipe that I saw on Food Network years ago. Another truth...in my opinion Rachel's recipes are hit or miss, but this this one was good. It was seriously good. So, give it a try. Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves stripped and chopped
1 lemon, juiced
4-5 large portobello mushroom caps, stems removed
salt and pepper
4-5 slices mozzerella
4-5 sandwich rolls
Whole baby spinach leaves
Thinly sliced red onions

Combine the olive oil, vinegar, rosemary and lemon in a large ziploc bag. Add mushroom caps and seal. Shake to let the marinade cover the mushrooms and let sit for 15 minutes.
Grill mushrooms for 6 minutes on each side and sprinkle with salt and pepper while grilling (you can grill them on a grill or just pan cook them on your stove top). Top with cheese and eat on the rolls with spinach, onion and red pepper paste. Recipe for red pepper paste below.

Roasted Pepper Paste:

1 (14-ounce) jar roasted peppers, drained
A handful flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 large clove garlic
Salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and grind until paste consistency.

Funny Face Plates

I got this idea from another blog and unfortunately I can't find the original source. The original person actually used real plates and permanently put the faces on them. I just drew faces on paper plates with a permanent marker. I used blueberries for eyes, string cheese for hair, colby cheese for the mustache and ham and a ritz cracker for the bow tie. The boys loved it and we just kept refilling their plates. And yes...Seth is dressed as Mr. Incredible and Wyatt is dressed as a Cowboy. That's how we roll.

Healthy Taco Soup

This soup is packed full of protein and low in fat. The original recipe called for ground beef, but I substitute ground turkey or meatless crumbles. My whole family enjoys it.

Ingredients:
1 lb Ground Turkey (cooked) or 1 Bag Meatless Crumbles
1 Pkg taco seasoning (there are low salt varieties that are good)
1 Pkg Dry Ranch Mix
1 Can Diced Tomatos
1 Can Rotel
1 Can Ranch Style Beans
1 Can Black Beans (drained and rinsed)
1 Can Yellow Corn (drained)
1 Can Enchilada Sauce

Directions:
In a large pot add taco and ranch seasonings to meat. Add enchilada sauce, tomatos and rotel. Bring to a a boil and then add all beans and corn. Simmer until hot. Top with low fat/fat free sour cream and low fat shredded cheddar cheese. Serve with Baked Tortilla Chips.

Muffin Tin Monday is YELLOW!!

The theme for this weeks Muffin Tin Monday was Yellow. I'm really enjoying the color themes that we've been doing and honestly, the boys are loving them too. Wyatt saw me putting up this post and asked why he never gets to do Muffin Tin Monday anymore. I told him that we do it while he's at school and he said that I should send one in his lunchbox. So, now I'm on the hunt for something I can do in his lunchbox. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
For this week's lunch we enjoyed: Yogurt covered pretzels, a Yellow banana, Strawberries and Blueberries, Yellow Bell Peppers (which Seth loved, but Reece wasn't fond of), Ranch for the Bell Peppers, and Quesadillas with Yellow Cheddar Cheese.

It was such a nice day that the boys had their lunch outside. We've been stuck inside a lot recently with rain, so it was really great to get out and eat.

Busy Mom's Fish Tacos

Friends, dinner doesn't get much easier than this. Seriously. A sweet friend brought these to us after I had Eli and I've made them twice since. They are soooo good and soooo easy. Just what this busy mom needs.

Ingredients:
Tortillas
Bag of Cole Slaw Mix (the kind without any dressing added)
Ranch Dressing
Frozen Tilapia Filets (we use the kind from Costco that are Tortilla Encrusted with Lime and Cilantro)

Directions: Cook the fish according to package directions and then cute into small pieces. Mix ranch with cole slaw. I just eye balled the ranch, but I would guess it was about a 1/4 cup (use however much you need to coat the slaw). Pile your tortillas high with the coleslaw mixture and fish.

That's it. Dinner is on the table in less than 20 minutes.

Muffin Tin Monday

It's that time again...Time for Muffin Tin Monday! We haven't done this in a while, but the boys just love it. If you're interested in joining in head on over to Muffin Tin Mom and see what the theme is. This week's theme was ORANGE.

We had Orange Juice, Clementines, Carrots, Ranch, Goldfish, Colby Cheese, Applesauce that I colored orange and an orange gumdrop.

Pumpkin Carving

The night of our pumpkin carving we had "Spider Pizza," a cheese pizza that I put olives on to make look like spiders and the boys thought it was fantastic. Before we carved the pumpkins we read The Pumpkin Patch Parable and had a great discussion about how God helps us shine His light to the world when He takes out all our yucky stuff (sin).
Then we let the boys draw the faces that they wanted on their pumpkins and we got busy carving. I was so glad no one stole our pumpkins like they did last year. I would have been one very unhappy mama.

Adventures in Cooking

I'm continuing my Adventures in Cooking with two recipes from the 2002 edition of Taste of Home Annual Recipes. You can find the cookbook here . This is a great cookbook. There are several recipes that I make often from it, but I don't use it enough. I received it as a wedding present and I definitely need to use it more.

I made the Baked Garlic Chicken and Salad with Buttermilk Dressing from the Meals in Minutes section. It was so easy and really prep time took just minutes and then the chicken only took 20 minutes to bake. I wonderful combination in my book.

My family (all kids included) LOVED the chicken and the salad dressing. I had to modify the chicken recipe a bit. It calls for savory herb with garlic soup mix which I couldn't find anywhere. So, I ended up using a vegetable soup mix and it worked great. It also calls for dry bread crumbs and I ended up using some bread crumbs that I found that were flavored "Herb and Garlic", so I figured that balanced things out. I will tell you that this recipe is not healthy (you rub the chicken down with some mayo first), but the chicken was moist and delicious.
I've never made salad dressing from scratch before, but it was so easy and so good! The recipe called for 3/4 cup buttermilk and I ended up using a whole cup to thin it out a little and it was perfect. I will definitely be making the salad dressing again. This way I can guarantee that there is no High Fructose Corn Syrup and just pure goodness in what we eat with our healthy salads.

Go get this book! I promise you won't be disappointed.

Adventures in Cooking

Last night I took my first dive into promise to try and cook new things. Both the recipes that I used were from the The Peachtree Tea Room Cookbook. Let me tell you, if you have never been to the Peachtree Tea Room in Fredericksburg, TX, you must. It. is. fantastic. Fredericksburg is great little town in Central Texas, full of boutiques, antique shops and lots of German food. The Peachtree Tea Room is a small restaurant and gift shop that is just perfect for stopping in and enjoying a fantastic freshly prepared lunch while your doing all sorts of shopping.

I've been going there since I was in middle school. My grandmother used to take me there when we would come visit her and now that I live only an hour away I try to go as often as possible. My husband and I spent three days in Fredericksburg a week ago at a bed and breakfast and the Tea Room was one of first stops to eat lunch. I had their chicken salad sandwhich, chilled avocado soup and then Jerad and I split a peach cobbler. Fredericksburg is famous for their peaches. Everything we had was so wonderful.

When we got back to Austin I asked my mom to borrow her Peachtree Tea Room Cookbook because I wanted to see if the recipe for the chicken salad and avocado soup were in it. Thank goodness they were! So, that is what I made last night, Cynthia's (Really Jo's) Chicken Salad and The Peachtree's Chilled Avocado Soup. I served the chicken salad as a sandwich in a croissant and (because I'm craving them all the time) I also served some nectarines on the side. I'm not going to provide the recipes for you because you can go online and order them here. I will tell you about the few modifications that I made to the recipe. The chicken salad called for homemade herbed mayo using raw eggs. Because I'm pregnant I was fearful of the raw eggs, so instead I just substituted real mayo from jar and added the herbs the recipe called for. I wish that I made the mayo in the recipe because mine was a little thin and the one at the restaurant was more creamy. When I'm not pregnant I will definitely make it again using the original recipe. The avocado soup calls for jalapenos and I was afraid that my little boys might not eat it if it was at all spicy (the one I had in the restaurant did have a little bit of a kick to it). So, I left those out. I wish that I had divided the soup and made part with jalapenos and part without. I really enjoyed the spice of the one at the restaurant, but I know my boys wouldn't have eaten it. Wyatt loved the soup and I did too. Seth, Reece and Jerad weren't big fans, but I think sometimes cold soup takes getting used to. So, I don't blame that on the recipe at all.

There are so many more recipes in the book that I plan on trying. My poor mom may never see her cookbook again. Although I do have birthday coming up, maybe that would be a good gift (hint to any family reading this : )

I definitely think this first time into cooking something unfamiliar to me was a success and I can't wait to decide what I'm going to make next!

Yummy Snack for the Boys

I got this idea from Her Cup Overfloweth and I must say it was a huge hit with the boys! I put vanilla pudding in the cup and then crushed some graham crackers for the "sand" and sprinkled blue sugar for the "water", then I added chocolate fish.

Watermelon Granita

The boys love watermelon; Wyatt asks for it every single time we go to the grocery store. However, I hate buying it because we never seem to be able to eat it all and so we end up throwing it out and wasting it. A few nights ago I made Watermelon Granita, now we will have no trouble finishing up watermelons!

Watermelon Granita:

4 cups cubed watermelon (or just use a melon baller)

1/2 cup sugar

Juice of two limes.

Blend all ingredients in a blender until liquid. Pour into a baking dish and place in freezer. Stir with a fork every 30 minutes until slushy. Serve with a spoon in some cute glasses! You could even serve it with extra lime wedges.

Muffin Tin Monday, Copy Cat Theme

This weeks theme for Muffin Tin Monday was Copy Cat. We were supposed to look at other Muffin Tins from other families and copy one that we really liked. When I originally saw the fishing themed Muffin Tin that Michelle did over at Her Cup Overfloweth I knew the boys would love it and I was waiting for the opportunity to share it with them. I was right and they loved "fishing" for their food.
In our Muffin Tin we had crushed graham crackers sand at the beach, chocolate and cheddar goldfish crackers, banana starfish, pretzel stick fishing poles, blue sprinkle water, and peanut butter bait. The boys dipped the pretzels in the peanut butter and then stuck it to whatever they wanted to fish out to eat.
If you haven't participated in Muffin Tin Monday, you definitely should. You can check it out over at Her Cup Overfloweth.

S'mores

The boys and I had a fantastic day today. Seriously, it was one of those rare days when almost everything was perfect. We went to our Thursday morning Mom's Group Bible Study, came home and had lunch (and they ate it all with no complaints) and then I happened to see that The Last Mimsy was on HBO. We've never seen this movie, but it had just started and the boys seemed interested in it so we all sat down on the couch to watch. They didn't move a muscle the intire time. There were some intense scenes in it where I had to ask "You know this is all pretend and not real and just a movie, right?" and they would tell me "yes, we know." They never acted like they were scared or I would have turned it off.

So, since we had such a good day I told them that if they went straight down for nap I would have treat for them after dinner when daddy went to play poker. Well, they went to sleep immediately without any problems (yesterday it took me over an hour to get them to go to sleep).

Once daddy left for poker we got out everything to make a tent in the living room and then I pulled out the "treat", s'mores!! They thought they were in heaven. We've never made s'mores before and it was great. I had these little campfire skewers that I got at Target for $2 and we used those to roast the marshmellows over the flame of my gas stovetop. Once Wyatt, Seth and I had our s'mores (Reece refused to actually roast a marshmellow, he just wanted to eat them plain) we all got under the tent to eat them and then read books.

Jerad plays poker every other week and I think this is definitely going to be something we start doing on a regular basis when he's gone.

We only had a few burned marshmellows.

Jesus' Birthday

Every year we make a birthday cake for Jesus at the end of the day on Christmas. I like that we do it at the end of the day because it just helps to refocus all of us. It's nothing fancy; the boys decorate it and we sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. This year I got candles that sparked and the boys thought that was pretty cool.

Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We certainly did. We spent the evening with Jerad's mom, aunt and grandmother. It was the first time that we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. It was a little crowded, but I was glad that we got to have them over.
I discovered the BEST cranberry sauce recipe the day before Thanksgiving on the Food TV site. It's an Emeril Recipe so of course it's good. Seriously, I don't like Cranberry Sauce, but I think this stuff was AMAZING. I'll be eating it over ice cream very soon.

Cranberry Sauce
2 cups Cranberries
Juice and chopped zest of 1 orange
1/4 cup Port
1/2 cup sugar, or more if needed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
In a small saucepan combine cranberries, orange juice and zest, port, sugar and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmering and cook until cranberries are tender, stirring occasionally. In a small cup make a slurry with cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water. Whisk cornstarch mixture into cranberry sauce and cook, whisking, until sauce thickens. Taste and add more sugar, if necessary.

Just FYI, I didn't have any Port and I didn't want to buy any. Several comments on the recipe said that they used 1/2 cup Orange Juice instead, so I that's what I did. It was fantastic!!

I made this Cinnamon Garland the day before Thanksgiving and it really made our Dining Room smell great. I got the idea from Skip to My Lou. You just mix together one bottle (4.25 oz) of cinnamon and about a cup of apple sauce. Then you roll it out between two sheets of plastic wrap. I used cookie cutters to cut the shapes and then baked it at 170 degrees (the lowest my oven will go) for an hour on each side. I hung the "Give Thanks" garland on the window by our dining table and the leaves and circles from our light about above our table.

Spider Pizza

I made these a couple of nights before Halloween and the boys loved them. I used English Muffins for the bottoms and then I used String Cheese for the Web. I made the Spiders out of Olives.

Obviously, I didn't pull the string cheese thin enough. I only made half with spiders because it was getting late and I knew the boys wouldn't eat them anyway.

Spider Sandwiches!!

Today I made a special treat for the boys' lunch. Spider Sandwiches!

First, I made the legs with two pretzel sticks. I held them together with raisins. Obviously, there aren't 8, but there wasn't enough room and it was kind of time consuming.
Then I used my Pampered Chef Cut N Seal Sandwich Maker (you could use any product that does this that's just the one I have) to make the peanut butter and jelly sandwhich.
I added raisin eyes and put little dots on the top of them with red decorator gel (which didn't show up to well in the picture).
Finally, I stuck the legs in the sandwiches and the spiders were complete.
I decorated a paper plate with black decorator gel to make a web and since it was gel it also edible.
The boys LOVED it!! I ran out of black decorator gel, so Seth's spider web was made from red gel and he thought that was great too.

Grilled Bananas

Well, I guess in Texas and Australia we'll grill just about anything. We picked up a book at our YMCA a couple of weeks ago during "Healthy Kids Week" that had healthy foods from around the world. One of the recipes in it was for Bananas on the Barbie from Australia. I decided to give it a try because it was super easy and seemed like it would be pretty good. Basically, you mix two tablespoons of lime juice with one tablespoon of honey, split the bananas lengthwise down the center and brush them with mixture and then put them on the grill. I kept brushing the lime/honey mixture on them while I was grilling them. I thought they'd be good with some ice cream too, but in keeping with the "healthy" part we went with frozen yogurt instead. They were really good and everyone liked them except Wyatt, but he doesn't like bananas under normal conditions anyway. We'll definitely be making them again.

Muffin Tin Monday-Shapes

The challenge for this week's Muffin Tin Monday was Shapes. Since Wyatt is always asking what shape any given letter is I decided that I would make that our challenge. I made the boys' names our "shapes".

Wyatt's Muffin Tin had:

W Shaped PB&J Sandwich, Y shaped String Cheese, A shaped Raisens, and 2 T shaped Z Bars

Juice, Pineapple chunks, Animal Crackers, Spoon

Tortilla Chips, Hummus, Cottage Cheese, Strawberries

Seth's Muffin Tin had:

S Shaped PB&J Sandwich, E Shaped String Cheese, T Shaped Z Bar, H Shaped Raisens

Juice, Pineapple Chunks, Spoon, Animal Crackers,

Tomatoes, Tortilla Chips, Cottage Cheese, Strawberries

Can you tell how excited they were about their names in their food?

A few tips: The letter sandwiches work much better if you use a rolling pin to roll out the bread nice and thin and then put the two slices together and cut out the letter shape. All the other shapes are held together with toothpicks.